I've often thought that the loss of love was a terrible, heart-breaking thing. To some extent, I still do. But I've come to realize over time that there are more painful things to experience and acknowledge.

Love, if you've had it, doesn't ever truly go away. It might sink to lows and wear the mask of hate when you feel angry or exposed, but by an extension, hate is love going through a very violent cycle. Hate is love, very afraid, neglected and worn threadbare.

I've mourned love lost. We all have. Pining for what I thought could be, fictionalizing what I believed it was. I don't lament that I moved through some elements of my life and the people who have shared time in it wearing a pair of rose colored lenses. No matter how old I get, I will always be a sensitive child that desperately wants to believe in the best of people. I guess the difference is...now I accept that when the beauty of the human spirit meets the potentially base element of choice, even the most beautiful spirit often gets buried or defined by regrettable decisions. In that exchange, you will always find the true measure of any man or woman. In that exchange is where you see if you have love...or something like it.